Highland Warrior by McCollum, Heather (good summer reads .txt) 📕

her reins. “Ye will not be taken. Is that clear? If they are following ye, get somewhere safe. I will bring Brenna to ye.”

“After you kill all of them? By yourself?”

His answer was to turn on his heels to stride to his horse, throwing a leg up to pull himself easily into the saddle of his tall mount. Hilda wrapped her arms around Kára under the cloak, pulling her body close against her. Kára had the irrational desire to fling Jean’s rich cape off, but it was the only way to get them both out of this palace prison.

Joshua waited for her to come up behind him to throw the torch in a trough of water near the door, dousing it. “Stay close,” he said. “Keep your hair covered.”

Of course, she would keep her hair covered. Jean’s tresses were dark while her hair was pale. Anger boiled inside her, threatening to bubble out across her tongue, but she kept her lips pinched. Red lips had slid all over Joshua’s neck and face. Had he even tried to stop her? Would any man?

They rode forward to the raised portcullis. “I thought ye were staying the night,” the gatekeeper called down.

Joshua grinned up at the man and reached over to take Kára’s hand fondly. “’Tis hard to keep quiet with her father sleeping next door. Do not give us away.”

The man laughed low and gave him a salute. “Come, love,” Joshua said.

Love? With evidence of Jean’s lips all over him? She almost snatched her hand back but made herself withdraw it slowly to take up her reins. They rode side by side out into the darkness.

“A bit faster now,” Joshua said softly, and she followed him into a trot and finally a full run. The moon kept hidden as they flew across the moor toward Brenna and her unborn bairn.

Chapter Nine

“A leader leads by example, not by force.”

Sun Tzu – The Art of War

Kára was angry.

Joshua knew enough about women that he spotted jealousy quickly, and he knew better than to smile over it. The lass didn’t like the idea of him tangling with Robert’s loose daughter. He would clear up her worries, whatever they were, but for the moment there wasn’t time, and the idea that Kára did not want to share him with another woman lightened his mood considerably.

Robert’s men did not give chase as he’d worried. Was John Dishington dead or merely asleep? Damn, Joshua wished he’d had the chance to knock the stupid grin off his ugly face. After the disaster of South Ronaldsay, where they’d been on opposite sides of the dispute, they had both traveled up to Birsay. Dishington was a mercenary, fighting for whomever had the most gold to give him. Even though Joshua didn’t need the coin, he needed a purpose, and training warriors had seemed like a good one—until he realized whom he was training them to conquer.

They halted the two horses before the three cottages and barn at Hillside. Geir ran out to grab her horse’s reins. “Broch!” he called. “You saved her,” he said, looking to Joshua as he dismounted.

“Your mother saved her,” Joshua answered. If Kára had allowed Dishington to sound the alarm, they would not have gotten past fifty armed men without him having to kill many. “Do ye have an ax nearby?” He dismounted Fuil to help the elderly healer down.

“An ax? Aye,” Geir said and bolted into the empty barn to bring back a short-handled ax.

“Stand here against this boulder,” Joshua said to Hilda as he set the length of chain encircling her waist over the granite.

“You cannot just chop it off her,” Kára said.

“I know,” Joshua answered.

Kára grabbed his arm, halting him. “If you—”

“I think he has a plan, Kára,” Hilda said, “that does not involve chopping me in half.”

Joshua wedged the blade of his sgian dubh through a thick link and lay it onto the top of the rock. He looked to Kára. “Hold it steady while I hit it.”

She held the blade handle so it wouldn’t slide away with the impact. Joshua aimed the ax and slammed the back of it down onto the dull side of the one-sided dagger. Clang. With one strike, the blade cleaved through the iron link where it had been soldered. The chain slid away from Hilda’s waist, and he heard her inhale fully as if she were also shaking off the mental chains of captivity.

“Where is Brenna?” Hilda asked and started walking in the direction Kára pointed. “Tell me what has been done so far.”

Joshua followed them below the hill, into an underground cottage, which was set up in the same way as Kára’s. No one stopped him from continuing into the bedchamber in the back. He should explain that nothing happened between Jean and him.

“Kára,” he said, but the word was lost under the exhausted keening sound of a woman being tortured. The sound shot the hairs up on the back of his neck, and he froze as if encased in ice there in the doorway. Pungent herbs and heat filled the space. Brenna lay on the bed, her face covered with sweat and contorted by pain. Eyes shut, she lay there panting, hands grasping the twisted sheets as agony gripped her. He’d never seen anything so horrible. It was as if she were being ripped apart from the inside out.

“Brenna,” Kára called, hurrying up to the bed. “Hilda is here. She will help you.”

Brenna opened her eyes, tears coming from them. It seemed she couldn’t focus. “Calder?”

Kára looked to Joshua. He retreated from the room, glad for the crisp air of outdoors. He ran up the hill and ducked into the first upside cottage where several men stood near a table in the center.

“Brenna is asking for Calder,” he said.

“He is not here,” one of the older men said. “Gone south to fetch a minister.”

The grim faces told Joshua nothing more. Did Calder think Brenna would die and needed a cleric to bless her